How to review the Book of Mormon? No doubt it has become a huge Broadway success and will likely run for many, many years, as it consistently sells out show after show after show. And now the show is touring the country, and is setting up shop in Chicago and London, which is the true measure of how long it will last.
I could sit here and talk about the show's plot at length, dissect its religious bashing and caricature of the Mormon beliefs. But what I really want to discuss is the humor. For Broadway, this has got to be the most crass, the most lowbrow, the most hilarious ever seen. I've never been to a show where the audience has been laughing for almost the entire duration of the show (except in those few, rare, tender moments) and the humor has been so vile.
Its actually a miracle this show has done so well. If you've seen South Park or the movie version, or Team America or any other work produced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone (save BASEketball, which they had no hand in making) you know they pull no punches and will go wherever they please. Book of Mormon's main jokes revolve around female circumcision, baby rape, and maggots in scrotums. It's base. And it's brilliant.
The show gets away with so much because it surrounds all this humor in upbeat and memorable musical numbers, mostly staged by the Mormons. Their sunny optimism and outlook keep the show up, and keep the spirit from becoming so mean, which can be a fault with Parker and Stone's other ventures. True there is the wonderful song Hasa Diga Eebowai, which I won't translate for fear of spoiling the punchline, but most of the numbers are more clever in their crudeness.
I make it no secret I am a huge admirer of Parker and Stone; their South Park is one of the best television shows ever made, a biting and base satire of the world. One episode can be a simple, crude story of the boys getting into crazy shenanigans, and the next they can be tearing down celebrities and pointing out the farce that is the American Dream. Book of Mormon is more pointed in its satire, but one should realize that it doesn't completely denounce religion altogether. (spoilers) During the show, one Mormon fashions a new version of the holy text to apply to the Africans they are trying to convert, by addressing the issues of AIDs, rape, and circumcision, which the Book doesn't directly address. The Africans (Ugandans, more accurately) don't believe the stories but take them as metaphors, stating, "You really think Joseph Smith fucked a frog?" (end spoilers)
Its amazing where we've come in the spectrum of Broadway musicals. I'm sure there are other, cruder musicals out there, but this one succeeded. This one took home 9 Tony awards, is selling out everywhere, and is as crude as shows come. Parker and Stone, along with Avenue Q composer Robert Lopez, have made a miracle of a show. Its vile, its base, its crude...and its the funniest show you'll ever see.
